The Romanoffs: Mad Men Creator Reveals Details on New Amazon Series

Mad Men ended its Emmy-winning seven-season run in 2015, and since then the cast has gone on to appear in various other films and television shows, which, in the case of Jon Hamm and January Jones meant staging a mini reunion on the set of FOX’s The Last Man on Earth. Still, while everyone from Elisabeth Moss to Vincent Kartheiser to Christina Hendricks have made their presence known in both film and TV following the finale, series creator Matthew Weiner has been relatively quiet with regard to what his next move will be.

Late last year, Weiner announced that he would be bringing his creative energies to Amazon for a new anthology series, though at the time there were few details available other than the show was a done deal and he would very soon begin working on the as-yet-untitled new show. Months went by without any updates – Weiner even announced that he would be publishing his first novel Heather, The Totality in the fall of 2017. But now it seems Weiner is ready to announce the show’s title The Romanoffs,and offer a few details on what fans can expect.

Speaking with THR, Weiner broke down the premise of the new show, once again reiterating that The Romanoffs would be an eight-episode anthology – though adding that the anthology aspect will be by an episode-by-episode basis, rather than per season. Weiner said:

“We’re doing an actual anthology — and I say it that way because the word is used for different purposes now than it was when I was growing up. They’re contemporary, but every single episode — and there will be eight — has a different cast, a different story and a different location. The thing that holds them together is that all of the stories involve people who believe themselves to be descendants of the Romanov [family, the last imperial dynasty to rule Russia. The mystery surrounding the family dates back to 1918, when revolutionaries brutally murdered Tsar Nicholas II and much of his family. But the remains of one of his daughters, Anastasia, long served as a mystery, with lore suggesting she’d survived the tragedy and taken on a new identity. In the years since, many have claimed to be Romanov survivors.] And that’s the title of the show, The Romanoffs. [Weiner’s spelling choice reflects the pronunciation as well as the way the family name was commonly spelled until recently.]”

The details come in the wake of Weiner reportedly assembling his writers’ room for the new series, on which he plans to also serve as director for about half the episodes. Weiner is bringing several familiar names from Mad Men to help create scripts, including Semi Chellas and Marie and Andre Jacquemetton, all of whom worked on the ’60s-set drama for several seasons. And while The Romanoffs hasn’t begun casting yet, Weiner isn’t ruling out some familiar faces from Sterling Cooper making an appearance. Given that it’s an anthology, it stands to reason the chances of Hamm or John Slattery picking up a one-episode role are pretty good, though we’ll just have to wait and see.

While there are still plenty of details left to uncover between now and when the new series premieres, the concept of The Romanoffs and the promise of Weiner and several of his previous show’s writing staff reuniting will likely have fans of Mad Men eager to see what this new Amazon series has in store.